June 18, 2010
Regular Baseball Playing May Lead To Health Hazards
Baseball is more commonly known as America’s pastime. You will observe baseball apparatus like the bat, ball, player’s glove, Pitching machine and player’s cap in many of the homes in the America. However, even though baseball is the country’s most preferred sport, it also results in many harms. Picture a scene when a ball right from one of the Pitching machines, hits you. The initial step to avoid such injuries is to have better playing equipment like helmets and gloves. However, injuries might not always end here. There are a lot of grave injuries associated with this sport which cannot be cured by just using good equipment.
Elbow Tendonitis
Baseball involves a lot of the twisting and turning of the upper arm and moving your arm to and fro over your head which causes a lot of strain on the shoulder muscles. The elbow joint is most affected by this. This is because the ligament inside the joint becomes irritated due to the continuous strain. This condition is known as tendonitis, and is one of the common injuries experienced by baseball players.
Rotator Cuff Tear
Rotator muscles are located on the shoulder joint. These are the muscles that keep the shoulder in place and also help in the movement of your arm in raising it high. With usual throwing, these muscles will rub against the bone that is under them and performing this repeatedly will result in muscle tearing. This may be a minimal injury that can be cured within a short time, yet is also one of the most hurting injuries that players can experience.
Back Strain
Baseball also puts an extra strain on your back. Because you have to turn before you throw, your back muscles may be overstretched which causes a condition can lead to a back strain.
Ankle Sprain
Strains and sprains are very frequent in baseball. Ankle sprain also involves overstretching of the muscles in the ankle. Mainly, it might be the ligaments that are overstretched. When you are sprinting fast or sliding into a base, you might get a short tear or a complete tear in the ligaments. This will cause a grave injury on your ankle.
Cracked Teeth
This would be one of the most aching injuries faced by baseball players. Baseball players do not use any kind of mouth guards and this means that balls can land anywhere. This condition is more observed in early players or beginners who have not yet learned how to react instantly to bad hop grounders or errant throws from the fielders.
Concussions
These head injuries may also be very common to begineers. People might not always wear safety helmets, which means that a ball can strike the head with full velocity resulting in some grim injuries. Players on the sidelines may not always be paying attention. This would mean that a ball can simply hit them and lead to injuries.
There are a lot of other injuries associated with baseball. Like any other sport, baseball also requires a lot of practice before you can excel at it. And this practice means many injuries coming along. To avoid this, you should have a skilled coach who can guide you on the total hours that you have to spend on practice, and also the proper posture.
